Before and After

I just finished painting the "sitting room." (What else can we call this room? Living room and family room confuse us. Which is which? Salon sounds pretentious. Sitting room and parlour are kind of old ladyish. I'll keep working on it.)

This is the room Kolby sits in when he gets home from work and I'm cooking dinner. It's where we sit to read with the kids at night. It's where I study. It is a lovely room that has no TV and holds all of my music. It even has pocket doors that I can close to listen to music as loud as I want without disturbing the Spongebob Fan Club. And it's been begging to be painted for weeks but I've felt paralyzed about deciding on a color. The kitchen color was easy. But the color for this room was tough.

It took a little nudging from my friend Jen, who has no fear of color, and it's finally done.

Here are some evolution pictures:

Before (MLS photos):

The indecisive phase:
After:

This is the wall that will remain nekkid for months. This is another thing that terrifies me--hanging stuff. (The painting above the buffet was lucky to find a pre-existing nail. Can you see the other pictures resting against the wall on the floor? They will be there for months.)

And we should probably keep it real, no? So the first photo is what the family room looks like right now. Please note the girls pajamas from last night intermingled with the clean laundry that hasn't been put away intermingled with various TV blankets and I'm sure some dirty socks.

And this is the room where I shoved everything so I could take the "After" photos.

Marine Science School

A couple weeks ago I went on a field trip with Madeline's class on a boat in the Puget Sound for Marine Science School.


This was HEAVEN for Madeline. We caught plankton and identified them under a microscope and then got to see them on a big screen.


We learned about our resident Orca whale population and things that we can do to help save them. (It's all about watershed. Pesticides, motor oil, bacteria from dog poop, they all end up in the Sound and kill either the fish or the whales or both.)

They sent down a diver with a camera while we watched on big screen TVs as she identified various forms of sea life. And then she put the sea life in bags and brought them up to the boat where the kids were able to touch them and learn about them up close before they set them free again.







I half expected Maddie to rub that sea star all over her face. I've seen her do it with less attractive creatures.

And I was able to enjoy the day with my stylish Wonder Woman Sea Bands.

Meet Rosa

Did I tell you that while we were moving Kolby was traveling for weeks? To really horrible places like Manhattan and Honolulu and Venice Beach? He was. (Oh yeah, I did tell you. Remember the talent show story?) Well he was racking up all those frequent flyer miles chasing Rosa around the country as she met her Facebook friends:

A peek

Just a quick glimpse of the new rug. I think I like it. We're struggling with this room, so I need to see if it works itself out...

And I can't find the cords for my camera, so my phone camera is the best you get.

Now means now

There is something you should know about me. It is both a strength and a weakness. I have absolutely no patience. None. When I decide I'm going to do something, it needs to be done now. Right now. As in no, you can't go to the bathroom first, I need to do this RIGHT. NOW.

This might seem like one of those "greatest weaknesses" that you bring up in a job interview, the kind that you can't really find anything wrong with because it's not a weakness at all. But it really does have it's downside (Kolby would agree.) For example, I become obsessed with that thing and cannot think of anything else until it is done. Can't sleep. Can't finish up whatever I was doing first. And I don't necessarily have the patience to learn how to do it correctly, so if it doesn't start turning out the way I envisioned it, I might just abandon it.

But it also can serve me well. Like last week when Kolby was traveling I decided I wanted the new kitchen faucet installed right then. And so I figured it out. It took 4 trips to ACE Hardware and a couple of phone calls to my dad, as well as a few towels to sop up the water that sprayed all over because I didn't tighten things up enough, but I did it. And now I have a lovely new faucet.


This is not about the kitchen sink though. Today I found a screaming deal on a shag rug for my living room. It's all rolled up in my car right now, and try as I may, I cannot carry it from the car to my house by myself. Which means I have to wait another 90 minutes for Kolby to get home from work. You have no idea how much pain this causes me. No patience.

Mr. Right

I really am going to post pics of the new house soon. It's just that I still have unpacked boxes in corners, and pictures on the floor propped against walls, and no baseboards, and various paint samples all over the walls, and doors off the hinges and tools everywhere. I think the tools make babies at night because every morning I swear there are more screwdrivers and hammers and drill bits spread across the fireplace hearth.

My spring quarter begins tomorrow, so I'm not too confident I'll make sense of this mess anytime soon. But maybe I can get one room complete enough to take photos by next weekend.

I will tell ya'll though, that you really let me down choosing Kolby's floor plan. I'd follow through on my threat to defriend you all, except then I'd be friendless. So here is my public statement: Kolby was right. He really did have a better idea for laying out the room. It works, and it looks good, and it is far superior to my floor plan. And the TV is in an ideal location--the kids have no excuse for eating on the couch since they can see Spongebob from the dining room table, and Madeline can no longer sneak out and watch TV at night from the hall.

Hobo Chic

It's that time of year when the kids' closets need overhauls because their jeans are either too small, or have holes in the knees, or both. (And it's a frustrating time of year to buy new jeans, because they're going to start wearing shorts soon, and the jeans I buy now will probably be floods in the Fall.)

Anyway, Madeline's pants were in bad, bad shape, so a couple weeks ago I bought her all new jeans. I kept the old hole-y, too short jeans for camping, but put them on the top shelf in her closet. And for some reason, at least twice a week I have to tell her to go put them back on the top shelf and put on the new jeans.

So today, once again, she comes out wearing jeans with big blow-outs in the knees that are also 2" too short. I told her she looked like a little orphan child.

Amelia said, "Yeah, you look like a little hobo. You're a hobosexual."